For many people in the corporate world, there is no real reason or need to upgrade from the 14-year-old Windows XP to a more modern version like Windows 7 or Windows 8. Some cite costs as a reason for not upgrading, while others point to the fact that their “mature” integrated systems simply don’t need anything new or fancy to operate properly.

One of the largest organizations that has no desire to move away from Windows XP is the Chinese government. China instead plans to patch XP on its own rather than upgrade to Windows 8, because upgrading would be too expensive (Windows 8 sells for 888 yuan in China, or roughly $142).

Just a little bit of Windows XP nostalgia...

Chinese firms have reportedly released special protection patches to shore up XP’s defenses and the Chinese government says that it is now assessing those patches for its own use.

Estimates peg the number of Chinese computers using XP at nearly 70% compared to 18% in the U.S. As of early April, 25% of all PCs on the market were still running Windows XP.

Despite the reluctance for many to leave XP behind, Microsoft finally ended official support for Windows XP earlier this month. So many people weren't keen to move from XP in the business world that Microsoft offered to extend support for some companies for a hefty price.

The reason they are sticking with XP is almost certainly because many computers in government departments are not powerful enough to run Windows 7 or 8, or need to run software incompatible with later OS's. Rather like how the British government are doing the same, but paying MS for extended extended-support.

Pirated versions of Windows 7 and 8 are readily available if you want to run them, in fact someone I know is running a pirated version of Windows 7 SP1 because he decided Microsoft would probably prefer him to do that rather than continue running a pirated version of XP SP3 which is likely to be become increasingly vulnerable to malware which targets both old and new machines. I'm actually surprised by how little has changed in the interface, but then again, that's why I didn't opt for Windows 8.1 (I don't have a touchscreen display).

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